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MTARP Measures

View a detailed description of each measure and the coding process from the information below.

Wave 1: Adoptive Parent Measures:

  • Demographic questionnaire
  • Adoptive Parent Interview
  • Child Adaptive Behavior Inventory (CABI: Miller, 1987)
  • Kirk Adoption Questionnaire (Kirk, 1981)
  • Parenting Stress Index (PSI: Abidin, 1986)
  • Twenty Statements Test (TST: Kuhn & McPartland, 1954)


Wave 1: Adopted Child Measures:

  • Child Interview
  • Understanding of Adoption Scale (Brodzinsky, Singer, & Braff, 1984)
  • Self-Perception Scale for Children (Harter, 1985)
  • Twenty Statements Test (see above)


Wave 1: Birth mother Measures

  • Demographic Questionnaire
  • Birth mother Interview
  • Ego Identity Interview (Grotevant & Cooper, 1981)
  • Health Checklist (Pennebaker, 1986)
  • Intimacy Interview (White, Speisman, Costos, Kelly, & Bartis, 1984)
  • Self-Perception Profile for Adults (Messer & Harter, 1986)
  • Twenty Statements Test (see above)


Wave 2: Adoptive Parent Measures

  • Adoptive Parent Interview
  • Agency Questionnaire
  • Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI: Derogatis, 1993)
  • Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL: Achenbach 1991a)
  • Demographic Questionnaire
  • Family Assessment Device (FAD: Epstein, Baldwin, & Bishop, 1985)
  • Family Inventory of Life Events and Changes (FILE: McCubbin, Patterson, & Wilson, 1981)
  • NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R: Costa & McCrae, 1993)
  • Parenting Stress Inventory (PSI: Abidin, 1986)
  • Psychological Parenting Questionnaire (Henney, 1995)


Wave 2: Adopted Adolescent Measures

  • Adopted Adolescent Interview
  • Adopted Adolescent Interview: Identity Coding
  • Adolescent Interview: Discrete Coding
  • Adolescent Interview: Openness Coding
  • Adoption Dynamics Questionnaire (ADQ: Benson, Sharma, & Roehlkepartain, 1994)
  • Brief Symptom Inventory (see above)
  • Demographic Questionnaire
  • Family Assessment Device (see above)
  • Personal Experience Screening Questionnaire (PESQ: Winters, 1991)
  • Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA: Armsden & Greenberg, 1986)
  • Youth Self Report (Achenbach, 1991b)


Wave 2: Family Interaction Task

Both adoptive parents and the adopted target adolescent participated in a 20-minute audiotaped family interaction task, in which the family was told they have unlimited funds and 2 weeks to plan a vacation together. They are asked to decide where they would go and what they would do each day. This task was successfully used in the researcher's earlier work (Family Process Project: Grotevant & Cooper, 1985, 1986) with a demographically-similar sample of non-adoptive families. Interactions were transcribed verbatim and coded for individuality and connectedness, using the Individuality and Connectedness Q-sort (Bengtson & Grotevant, 1999).

Wave 2: School Records

Adolescents and their parents were asked permission for us to contact the adolescents' schools for their grades from as many years as possible, standardized test scores, class rank, and records concerning special education and gifted and talented programming. This information forms a unique longitudinal data set based on archival records rather than self report.

Wave 2: Birth mother Measures

  • Birthmother Interview and Demographic Questionnaire
  • Brief Symptom Inventory (see above)
  • Ego Identity Interview
  • ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Scale (Fowers & Olsen, 1993)
  • Family Inventory of Life Events and Changes (see above)
  • Grief Experience Inventory-Loss Version (Sanders, Mauger, & Strong, 1985)
  • Harter Self-Perception Profile for Adults (Messer & Harter, 1987)
  • Health Checklist (see above)
  • Intimacy Interview
  • Life History Calendar (Freedman, Thorton, Camburn, Alwin, & Young-Demarco, 1986)
  • NEO Personality Inventory (see above)
  • Openness Checklist
  • Twenty Statements Test (see above)

Wave 3: Adopted Emerging Adult Measures

  • Adopted Young Adult Interview - Adoption
  • Identity Interview (Religion, Education / Career)
  • Intimacy Interview (aka Personal Interaction Interview)
  • Demographic Questionnaire
  • Network of Relationships Inventory
  • Adoption Communication Scale
  • Interview of Parent and Peer Attachment
  • Experiences in Close Relationships Questionnaire
  • Life Events Questionnaire
  • Achenbach Adult Self-Report
  • Inventory of Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood
  • Adoption Dynamics Questionnaire

Wave 3: Adoptive Parent Measures

  • Adoptive Parent Interview
  • Demographic Questionnaire
  • Achenbach Adult Behavior Checklist

Wave 3: Young Adult Partner Measures

  • Young Adult Partner Interview - Intimacy Interview
  • Demographic Questionnaire
  • Experiences in Close Relationships Questionnaire
  • Network of Relationships Inventory

Wave 4: Young Adult Adoptee Measures

The 13 Part YA survey was administered in the following order:
1. Demographics (living arrangements, education, employment, community / civic service, family, relationships, children, health, religion)
2. Inventory of Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood
3. Adoption Dynamics Questionnaire (30 item version)
4. Adoptive Identity Questionnaire
Questions about microaggressions
5. Adoption Openness / Contact questions about birth mother, birth father, and birth siblings
6. Adoption-related Feelings (about birth mother, birth father, birth siblings, adoptive mother, adoptive father, and self)
7. Balancing Your Life Questionnaire
Life Events
8. Ryff Scales of Psychological Well Being
9. Brief Symptom Inventory
10. Experiences in Close Relationships
11. Network of Relationships Inventory
12. Child Adaptive Behavior Inventory – only for participants with children
13. Parenting Stress Index – only for participants with children

Wave 4: Birth Mother Measures

The 7 Part birth mother survey was administered in the following order:
1. Demographics (living arrangements, education, employment, family, relationships, children, religion)
2. Information gathering and contact with young adult adoptee
3. Openness among those involved with the adoption
4. Relationship between YA and others in the birth family
5. Feelings about the adoption plan
6. Current birth mother role
7. Agency contact

A subset of birth mothers was also interviewed. The semi-structured interviews were an extension of the birth mother survey and allowed for more in-depth responses related to the topics of the survey. These topics included information-gathering and contact with the adopted young adult, openness among those involved with the adoption, relationship between their adult birth child and others in the birth family, feelings about the adoption plan, current birth mother role, and agency contact. There was also a section exploring the role technology played in communication and information-gathering, with a set of questions related to social media use.